In Ghent

One more night. That’s it, and I’ll never have to come back here again. I’ll never have to deal with this again.

We’re sitting at an outdoor table at a café not far from Saint Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent. We’ve been in Belgium for about a week; three days and nights in Bruges, and the past two nights in a small flat in Ghent overlooking a river – the Scheldt, I believe – and tomorrow we’ll be leaving for Antwerp for our final stop before we head back home.

That’s good, at least, I think. I’m not sure how much more I can handle.

My cup is half full of coffee which by now has gone cold. It’s a bit of a dreary, grey morning – a light rain is falling, more of a mist. It makes sense, in my tourist mind, for what I imagine when I think of Belgian cities: grey skies over canals lined with grey and brown brick houses with stepped gables.

I light another cigarette.

“How many is that already?” My wife asks. She’s visibly annoyed.

I don’t even know the answer. Four? Five? I glance at the time on my phone. A little after ten. She’s not wrong. I’ve promised I’ll quit completely, so I’ve been trying to cut back lately – four or five in a whole day, maybe - but the past few days I’ve been looking for any distraction I can get.

“No idea,” I say, taking another drag. It’s already lit, may as well just finish.

She frowns. She worries, I know.

But she can’t help with this. I haven’t really slept for days. My nerves are frayed

and right now it seems to me that a smoke will help more than it could hurt.

“We can go whenever you’re ready,” I say, stubbing the cigarette out in the ashtray.

***

Of course I’d assumed the first night was a dream.

We’d spent the day walking the city and checking off the more touristy destinations on my wife’s list. Eventually we’d found our way to a pub on a square who made a big deal about serving a massive beer inside a glass which was shaped like a giant boot. They’d made us each hand over one of our shoes as a deposit – they would be returned to us when the boot was returned, intact, to the bar. The process had made things a little difficult, and it had gotten slightly confrontational with the bartender, when I had asked for my shoe back in order to visit the restroom.

We’d arrived back at the flat around probably a little before eleven, several normal sized beers deep apiece. I had taken a quick shower, brushed my teeth, and climbed exhausted into bed.

I’d awakened in the middle of the night to the sound of movement in the adjoining room – a dining room we hadn’t used and had only briefly entered when we had first arrived at the flat, and which we knew to be unoccupied. We’d rented the entire flat, so there was no reason anyone might be in there at all, much less so late.

It was nothing loud – just a soft shuffling noise, like someone quite light walking around in soft slippers.

“Who’s there?” I’d whispered into the dark. I was half asleep, half tipsy - I can’t say why I thought to ask – any response at all would have done nothing to settle my nerves. Any response at all probably would have made things worse.

The shuffling had stopped.

There had been no answer, but I’d known someone was there. I could hear them outside the bedroom door, which I’d left open, since it had never crossed my mind that there might be any reason at all to close it.

I think I might have audibly gasped as the door began to slowly – very slowly, but plainly visibly – began to close. Through the sleep in my eyes and through the darkness, I could have sworn I had seen the shadow of someone moving in the adjoining room. It had taken what felt like a full thirty seconds, but eventually the door had closed to being ajar only the smallest crack.

I hadn’t gotten back to sleep that night. I had spent the remaining hours before the sunrise watching the door. When my wife awoke, she denied having heard anything. She’d had a more peaceful and uninterrupted sleep than she had in probably months.

I’d walked through the dining room that morning through the door which connected it to the bedroom. A dark wooden rectangular table sat in the middle of the room, lined with matching chairs with high, ornately carved backs. The only other furniture was a sideboard containing the dishes and cutlery along with the kettle and three-in-one coffee/sugar/creamers they often supply in places like this.

A half drunk, half awake dream was as good an explanation as anything else – a better explanation than anything else, really. My only real evidence was that the door I’d thought had been open was slightly less open than I remembered, and I couldn’t remember if I actually had left it open to begin with.

The second night I’d made damn sure the door was closed. I’d pulled it shut and heard it click, and given it a few firm pulls to ensure it couldn’t possibly swing open on its own for any reason; if that door was going to be opened, the knob would need to be turned.

That second night, something had turned the knob.

I’d awakened again in the middle of the night. As my eyes focused I could see plainly that the door was open. I could feel the warmth of my wife behind me; she hadn’t moved.

I could see through into the next room.

One of those high backed chairs sat at the far wall, facing in the direction of the bedroom. In the dark, it looked black against the wall.

Slowly a black shape – it had seemed to me very clearly to be at the least the size and general shape of a human but otherwise completely featureless – had risen out of the chair. I had watched, completely frozen, as it had approached the door, an ink black, blurry edged shadow in the dark. It had paused there in the threshold.

Suddenly, violently, the door had slammed shut. I could hear the click of the latch as it shut completely.

My wife hadn’t moved. Again I hadn’t slept.

***

We spend the rest of the day walking the city. My wife stops constantly to take photos. I don’t keep count of how many more cigarettes I smoke, but my pouch of tobacco is close to empty by the time we finish dinner. She doesn’t bring it up again.

Is this really something to be that concerned with, though? I’ve thought about it for days and it sounds completely insane. The first night, we got a bit drunk and in the morning a door was open that I couldn’t remember whether I’d closed – then the second night, a door I had made damn sure was closed, in the morning…was closed. I have plenty of unpleasant dreams and they’re always vivid and annoyingly, generally very plausible; the worst recurring dreams I usually have center around me returning to a job I had just after college when I worked at a private golf club, and having to deal with those insufferable entitled pricks. The point is I don’t generally spend my dreams encountering anything supernatural or otherworldly.

I feel a growing sense of discomfort as we walk back to the flat. Our last night, and I can’t wait to leave. I prepare for bed and make sure I’m packed and ready to go first thing in the morning – the less time I have to spend in this place, the better. I close the door, hear the click.

I fall asleep quickly. I’m coming to an age where I don’t find that difficult, and combined with the accumulated lack of sleep, it’s probably only minutes from when I climb into bed to when I’m unconscious.

It’s still dark when I awaken. Not sure of the exact time, but sometime in what could reasonably be considered the middle of the night. My eyes flutter open and struggle to adjust to the dark. I can feel my wife’s breath rising and falling behind me. A gentle rain is falling outside, the drops beating a staccato rhythm against the windows.

I know I’m awake. I’ve gone over this in my head for the past two nights and days. It’s almost all I’ve thought about. I know I’m not dreaming.

The floorboards just outside the bedroom creak softly and my heart begins to pound. I can hear it again. I can feel it again. I know soon I’ll see it again.

I can feel myself beginning to sweat. My heart is thundering in my chest. I try to breathe normally but it comes ragged and shallow. I don’t move. Can I move? My limbs feel heavy, like they’re wrapped in invisible chains.

The floorboards creak again – no footsteps, just as if someone shifted their weight from one foot to the other.

The doorknob turns. Slowly, the door begins to open. The hinges seem to scream in the still dark.

I close my eyes as much as I can without closing them – I want to be able to see, but I don’t want it to see my open eyes. If I move, if it knows I’m awake – what then?

The door stops when it’s halfway open and the room is silent once again except for the sounds of our breathing.

The figure is silhouetted against the open door. Completely blank, completely black, but it seems to roil and churn like a cloud of thick smoke. It doesn’t appear to touch the floor.

I’m ashamed to admit I feel like a child – completely helpless. I want to squeeze my eyes shut, to pull the covers over my head. I want to hide until it’s gone. But what could that do? Someone – something is here with us. It’s been here with us, and we don’t have any idea what it wants. What kind of man am I if I don’t do something?

“Hey,” I manage to whisper. I sound hoarse and small and weak. “Hey!”

I summon everything I have and sit up quickly in the bed.

“Who the fuck are you? What the fuck do you want?”

My voice quakes with fear and rage. Who DO they think they are?

The shape doesn’t move.

“Get out of here!”

I throw the covers aside and leap from the bed facing the door. My bare feet hit the cold floor and I’m surer than ever that I’m awake.

I have no plan. This is not a situation you can prepare for. This isn’t a situation I even believe in. But I can’t do nothing. So I do what I’ve been taught you’re supposed to do if you encounter certain types of bears. I hope that if I can seem big enough, and loud enough, and mean enough, that whoever this person is - whatever this thing is - might consider us more trouble than we’d be worth.

“What is happening? What’s going on?” My wife cries from behind me.

I turn to see her sitting fully upright in the bed, her eyes wide and confused.

“I’ve had enough of this shit,” I say. I feel tears stinging my eyes. The fear and the feeling of crippling helplessness are too much. “And I’m doing something about it.”

I turn back to the door.

It’s closed.

***

We’re home.

I can say for an absolute certainty that I’ve never been more grateful and relieved to see a vacation end.

Antwerp had been different – we’d enjoyed the rest of our time and I’d slept peacefully through each night.

Our flight home arrives after midnight, so our food options are limited. We take an Uber from the airport and stop by the 24 hour KFC, which has become a bit of a post-vacation ritual.

We watch an episode of King of the Hill as we eat – back to what feels like normalcy.

I shower and brush my teeth and climb into bed. The sheets are fresh and clean and warm, and they smell familiar. I wrap my arms around my wife, and it’s probably about 2:15 by the time we get to sleep.

It’s maybe two hours later when I wake up.

A figure moves in the dark.